Women’s Space In The Plot Against America

Philip Roth(1933-2018)is one of the most prominent writers of contemporary Jewish literature.The Plot Against America is Philip Roth’s counterfactual novel.The preponderance of historical study and scarcity of attention to its gender issue renders the novel thematically one-dimensional.Therefore,this thesis adopts feminist geography to the analysis of women’s space in The Plot Against America,digging into their spatial predicament,alongside with their resistance through space.This thesis is sectioned into three chapters.The introduction proffers a profile of Philip Roth’s writing career and mixed criticism to his works,introduces the main plot of The Plot Against America with elaboration,and teases out the novel’s studies both at home and abroad,as well as the theoretical framework of feminist geography.The first chapter interprets space segregation based on gender and the attribution of mobility to men’s space and fixity to women’s space.The second chapter puts centrality on women’s spatial predicament.Spatial fixity urges women to work in gendered professions.Though rid themselves of fixity,women are still in the grips of patriarchy.And the patriarchal intrusion into women’s private space and subjectivity further adds constraints on their struggle for autonomy of space.The last chapter focuses on how women carry out spatial resistance by securing spatial mobility,and at the same time crossing the borderline between male and female space,which undermine the bisection of gender space and enlarge women’s living space.In conclusion,the study exposes that the space in The Plot Against America,though in tandem with patriarchy,ameliorates maintenance of the prevalent gender segregation,but also empowers women to undermine male preeminence and claim autonomy.Moreover,Philip Roth crystallizes how space rules women and enables women to overturn spatial hegemony,which is a testimony to his deep concern for women’s status quo.